He was the son of landed proprietors, of an ancient family, with a famous name of Tatar descent.

He finished his education in the Tzarskoe Selo Lyceum, which, from the time of Pushkin on, graduated so many notable statesmen and distinguished men.

The authorities of the Lyceum were endeavoring to exterminate the spirit of Pushkin, who had died only the year before, and severely repressed all scribbling of poetry, which did not in the least prevent almost every boy in the school from trying his hand at it and dreaming of future fame.

Thus incited, Saltykoff, from the moment of his entrance, earned the ill-will of the authorities by his passionate love of verse writing and reading, and when he graduated, in 1844, it was in the lower half of his class, and with one rank lower in the civil service than the upper half of the class.
In 1847 he published (under the name of "M.

Nepanoff") his first story, "Contradictions," and in 1848 his second, "A Tangled Affair," both in "The Annals of the Fatherland." When the strictness of the censorship was augmented during that same year, after "the Petrashevsky affair," all literary men fell under suspicion.